I have now spent 3 weeks out of my planned 4 in Rome. Today is the first I spent entirely at home, in Leslie Caldwell’s flat near Piramide, which I have rented. I worked rather hard all day (relieved by trips to the adjacent cafe), trying to finish a write-up of a talk for Bob Colenutt, promised a year ago but just too hard to do. I made a lot of progress and the result so far is at http://societycould.wordpress.com. Do please look and comment if you have time. The other thing I did was the washing. Tricky because it keeps raining: shocking for everyone here because Rome should be dry and hot in May. But I’m on my third umbrella. The informal flexible economy works well in the umbrella department: when it rains umbrella men appear everywhere. (What are these men doing the rest of the time?)  The asking price is always 5 but the acceptable price is always 3. So I spent 9 euros so far on rain.

This evening my friend Giorgio Piccinato asked me for a drink. So I went into town—to his flat in the vicolo di Buon Consiglio (alley for good advice, roughly). We progressed to a meal - spaghetti with garlic, chile and oil with some added powdered ¿roe or something. Good anyway. We talked about boring planning articles, ambitious colleagues, mutual friends, family stuff, a possible trip to a rural lake next week. Nice.

Coming home I waited for the 175 bus under my umbrella in the via dei Fori Romani, feling very ambivalent about ancient Rome. Such massive structures and achievements, but just by the bus stop is a tourist info panel about the casa de pacis whose highlight was (in the year +71) a gigantic marble mural cadastral map of the city. So ‘peace’ was clarity about private property rights. Robert Frost would have liked the ancient world. Ambivalence seems fully in order.

I was pleased to have my earphones and be able to have some music. A couple of days ago the Guardian fucked up its iPhone Application in some way (generating angry messages from Nepal, Brasil and the Khyber Pass). This meant me ‘restoring’ all the software on my phone which is a very cumbersome business… and anyway my music is a complete jumble. I found myself coming home with Bach piano music, some reggae, a curious calypso about the Coronation (1953), and then suddenly Camden Community Radio with Angela and Marian iterviewing Una Sapiets, Phil Jeffries, Bob McMahon and other old friends about the local history of King’s Cross. Good. Strange jumble though. Now it is Peter Bishop talking so I realise I can switch off.

In the early evening I had a quick check of BBC and Guardian. I was enraged to see that they both reported ‘markets falling’ as traders fretted about the possible deflationary effects of state expenditure cuts in Europe. Can you believe it? All of us on the left have been warning for a year or more about the dire consequences which will ensue from these cuts. Suddenly the financial institutions think about it. Who are they, these morons who rule the world? …and who demanded the cuts?

LATER  17 May.  On saturday 15th, after it stopped pouring with rain, I set off into the city centre at night because Rome is taking part in the all-night-free-museums project and I wanted to see de Chirico.  When I got to via Nazionale there was a queue of maybe 800 people and it was raining again.  So I trudged home rather dejected - to find in the metro station here a concert by the staff band of the metro workers.  About 40 men doing a big-band show, smart in their official suts with logos. A few hundred travellers stopping to be amazed, surprised, smiling, a few dancing..  Nice.

Then on sunday evening 16th a good dinner at Silvia’s with friends speaking combinations of It / Fr / Eng and we did it OK on the whole.  Coming home I found the number 3 tram (actually an acting bus, but universally called a tram) does not run after 2200 on Sunday so again there I was trudging home when one of Silvia’s friends who had been at dinner passed me on her scooter, recognised me from behind in the dark (amazing) stopped and put me on her pillion.  Thus it was that I had a long, and no too scarey, scoter ride from Colisseo to Piramide. To celebrate I took a grappa in the cafe on the traffic island.  They have mice under the tables.

Everyone here talks about the weather all the time. Boring.  Lecture went well today - a good version of King’s Cross.  But I felt a bit shattered after it:  a cold coming?

Your leader coming down on the side of David Cameron really is the wrong advice for the country, and especially for Londoners. You write exclusively about the three main leaders, but we are not electing a president. We are electing a party, so let’s look at them.

Certainly the choices are hard, but for many of us that’s because all three of the main parties are seriously wrong about how to recover from the crisis, and all of them are wrong in trying to get back to how the economy was before. After a brief flirtation with Keynesian ideas—that expanded state spending would lead us back to income growth—we now see all the parties switching back to ’sound finance’ and proposing massive spending cuts. That’s how the recovery of the USA through the New Deal was brought to a halt in the 1930s and it threatens to do the same in Britain and the rest of Europe now.

Londoners were severely hurt by the way the economy worked before the crash: poor people squeezed between low wages and high rents and the middle classes afflicted by housing costs which - per square metre - are the highest in Europe after Monaco. Even quite rich people agonised about how their children would ever afford to buy a place to live. Does anyone, other than the very rich, really want to go back to that sort of world?

Looking at the choices from the three main parties, one could say that Labour got us into this mess. Indeed they did, acting in unison with other governments. But at least labour has some chance of delaying the cuts, and might even recover its Keynesian heritage with a whole swathe of new MPs and mounting pressure from the grass roots. But we know for sure that the Tories will cut and cut viciously in the Thatcher tradition. And London’s economy is so dependent on state spending on infrastructure, transport subsidies, housing and key benefits like housing benefits and tax credits that we’ll suffer really badly from a Tory period. Nothing could be worse for London.

From this perspective, Londoners should vote in whatever way makes a Tory government less likely. This means different things in each constituency. Where I live, in a very safe Labour seat, I’ll vote for the Greens who are good on the economy, are the only ones who are serious about global warming and the more votes they get the sooner we’ll get a serious PR system and thus end the monopoly of two or three parties.

Michael Edwards

This was their article:

Cameron: the Prime Minister that London now needs, leader column, 5 May
The new Evening Standard has been determined to approach this election with
an open mind — open solely to what is best for London. And tomorrow’s
General Election, more than any since 1997, represents a real choice about
Britain’s and London’s future. We need a party and a leader with the steel
to take the unpopular decisions that undoubtedly lie ahead — yet with the
compassion to address the inequalities exposed recently in this paper’s
Dispossessed series on London’s poor.
The choice has become much clearer over the past four weeks: that is the
value of election campaigns, democracy at its most frenetic. Party leaders
have been tested to the limit, both in the TV debates and on the campaign
trail.
Labour wants us to stick with them, as this paper did in the past three
elections, endorsing Tony Blair. But by any measure, Gordon Brown has had a
wretched election. He looks exhausted. The choice he represents has become
more explicit than ever: more of the same, sticking with the devil we know
for fear of change and instability.
We should not be too quick to discount the appeal of stability, after two
years of recession. Labour’s record in many areas is respectable. Crime is
down; there has been investment in transport; there have been important
constitutional reforms, such as a Mayor for this city, and civil
partnerships for gay people; and there has been improvement in the NHS and
schools, albeit at enormous cost. Indeed, voters may not end up being quite
as keen on change as they tell pollsters they are, especially since the
biggest change ahead, whoever forms the next government, will be savage
spending cuts.
But even for loyal Labour voters, another five years of Mr Brown can
hardly seem an appealing prospect. It is not simply that Mr Brown looks
tired and careworn, the face of the past. The inevitable riposte to any of
his promises is: why didn’t you do it years ago? Labour has had 13 years to
reform the economy: instead, as Chancellor, Mr Brown let the banks rip. He
had years to repair the public finances. Instead, we now have the biggest
peacetime deficit ever. On issues from immigration to schools to soldiers’
kit to welfare reform, Mr Brown could have acted for real change years ago
— but did not.
The Prime Minister should have used this campaign to present a compelling,
fresh vision for Britain and a renewal of his party’s purpose. He was
unable to do so. Labour appears utterly exhausted, without either new ideas
or the energy to campaign for them convincingly.
The Conservative alternative is far fresher. Since taking the party’s helm
almost five and a half years ago, David Cameron has wrought huge change.
There are those both inside his party and out who deride his commitment to
the environment and to fighting poverty as mere spin. But people said the
same of Tony Blair’s embrace of business — and it turned out that, at least
under him, Labour had changed. Mr Cameron has shown flashes of steel that
belie those critics who doubt his commitment to that modernisation.
He has campaigned on the centre ground and that has made the Tories look
like a party of government again, for the first time since 1997. He has a
decisive ruthlessness that Mr Brown does not — and it showed over crises
such as the MPs’ expenses row.
And this is the most important revelation of the past four weeks. Mr
Cameron has grown in this campaign. If the point of British elections
nowadays is largely to test the characters of the would-be premiers, Mr
Cameron is the clear winner. Despite the challenge of Mr Clegg, he stuck
with it and learned from his mistakes. Few could now doubt that he has the
strength and clarity of vision to lead the country.
The Conservatives have as yet not given enough detail about how they would
reduce the deficit, but we can take seriously their promise to do so faster
than Labour. And while Labour has claimed that too-early cuts would damage
the economy, it is hard to see how the extra £6 billion of cuts promised so
far by the Tories would seriously undermine the recovery. At the same time,
they promise a return to an approach of empowering individuals, in part
through holding down taxes — for example through their pledge to cancel the
planned National Insurance increase — and partly through devolving power to
individuals.
This is Mr Cameron’s “Big Society” idea. Whatever the inevitable gaps in
the plan, it represents a far more comprehensive and compelling vision of a
changed society than Mr Brown’s big state. It is an idea with personal
responsibility at its heart, rather than reliance on government: to many
people, that instinctively makes sense. After 13 years of an encroaching
state, it has an appeal that transcends party lines. And Labour has no
equivalent vision.
The Lib-Dems, meanwhile, are every election’s wild card; this time,
“Cleggmania” has fuelled a heady campaign. In fact, they have deserved
serious attention since the start of Mr Clegg’s tenure as leader, in 2007,
and this paper has paid it to them. Mr Clegg has done much to modernise his
party’s policies — the policy to raise tax thresholds so as to remove the
poorest workers from tax has real merit. The Lib-Dems have been more honest
than the other two parties about the tough fiscal choices ahead, refusing
to ringfence NHS spending. Mr Clegg has freshness and can claim to
represent real change from the big party duopoly. His party has won the
right to greater respect and status in the next parliament.
Yet the Lib-Dems still do not look like a party of government. Partly it
is the residue of unrealistic policies such as support for British
membership of the euro. Partly it is their dearth of serious talent: after
Mr Clegg and shadow chancellor Vince Cable, they have few other
heavyweights. And they cannot expect to win an outright majority. They will
instead hope for a hung parliament, most likely led by the Tories.
A hung parliament might look an attractive option for many voters
alienated from politics. Yet it would be a recipe for bickering and drift
at a time when, even more than usual, the nation’s dire economic straits
demand clear leadership.
The stakes for London in all this are high. On Heathrow expansion, Mr
Cameron has opposed a new runway. That should prove a popular promise, in
west London especially. Meanwhile this paper’s series on London’s
dispossessed has highlighted the extremes of wealth in the capital and the
way in which the very poor have continued to suffer under Labour. The
Government now offers them nothing convincingly new; tackling deprivation
would be the greatest test of David Cameron’s Big Society.
Today, we believe that only the Conservatives can offer Britain — and
London — the possibility of real change and firm leadership.
Their offer is incomplete. If they are elected, we will watch them closely
and critically to see that they serve this nation’s, and above all this
city’s, interests. We will not hesitate to call them to account if they
fall short of their promises.
But the Conservatives are ready for power: they look like a government in
waiting. They have a charismatic leader in David Cameron. He has proved
himself under fire in this campaign. And he now emphatically deserves a
chance to succeed where Labour has failed.

The dozen deciders that could swing it in London, 5 May
BARKING
Labour majority: 12,183
Labour since 1945. Mostly white working class, with only 20 per cent ethnic
minority voters. Four out of 10 residents live in council housing.
Regeneration hopes pinned on Crossrail and Thames Gateway projects.
Highly symbolic battle between minister for tourism Margaret Hodge and BNP
leader Nick Griffin. The BNP may have picked the wrong seat here, compared
with the more winnable Dagenham. Boundary changes strengthened Hodge, but
BNP did well in the 2006 local elections. David Cameron hopes Tory Simon
Marcus can kill off BNP challenge even if Labour vote collapses.
To kick out Brown: Vote Tory
To stop Cameron: Vote Labour
To stop Clegg: N/a

BRENT CENTRAL
Labour majority: 7,649
Although the magnificent new Wembley stadium and Hindu temple in Neasden
dominate the skyline, the area is made up of huge social housing estates.
Harlesden and Stonebridge have some of the worst deprivation in London.
Dogfight between two neighbouring MPs pitched against each other by
boundary changes. Labour minister Dawn Butler and rival Sarah Teather, the
Lib-Dem business spokeswoman who won Brent East in a famous by-election,
claim the other milked her expenses. Classic Lib-Dem surge territory and
real test for Labour.
To kick out Brown: Vote Lib-Dem
To stop Cameron: Vote Labour
To stop Clegg: Vote Labour

BRENTFORD & ISLEWORTH
Labour majority: 3,633
Archetypal London seat made up of rich and poor areas, from comfortable
Chiswick to poorer Brentford and Heston. Jobs boosted by GlaxoSmithKline HQ
and ribbon of development along the M4.
Dubbed “Mrs Expenses” after the disclosure of second home claims, health
minister Ann Keen, is facing the fight of her life. Boundary changes have
reduced her majority. A Tory seat before 1997, Tory hopeful Mary MacLeod, a
former policy adviser at Buckingham Palace, campaigning hard. But Lib-Dem
Andrew Dakers is not far behind and could provoke an upset. A real
three-way fight.
To kick out Brown: Vote Tory/Lib-Dem
To stop Cameron: Vote Labour
To stop Clegg: Vote Labour
CROYDON CENTRAL
Labour majority: 328
Most of seat is white, lower middle class and suburban. Huge council estate
of New Addington in south, north more ethnically mixed. United Kingdom
Border Agency HQ is big employer, though council hopes to build new
theatre, shops and offices in regeneration.
Usually one of those straight Labour-Tory battles that seems almost 1950s
in its lack of Liberal history. Although nominally a Labour seat due to
boundary changes, Tory Gavin Barwell, an aide to Lord Ashcroft, expected to
do well. But Labour’s Gerry Ryan could pull off a surprise if there is
resentment at previous Tory MP Andrew Pelling who was forced to become an
independent after leaving his wife for his office assistant. Mystery
ingredient is whether the Clegg surge will kill Labour’s hopes or restrict
Tories in equal measure
To kick out Brown: Vote Tory
To stop Cameron: Vote Labour
To stop Clegg: N/a

DAGENHAM & RAINHAM
Labour majority: 6,372
With the enormous Ford car factory the main employer, historically a white
working class heartland for Labour. But boundary changes have chopped off
deprived wards in the west and added leafy Tory wards from Havering.
Previously an unheard-of target for the Tories, their candidate Simon Jones
could pull off a shock win if Labour’s core vote collapses or shifts in big
numbers to the BNP. Sitting MP and Left-winger Jon Cruddas is battling hard
to convince voters he recognises fears over housing and jobs. If he loses,
he could become Labour’s 2012 mayoral candidate. If he wins, he could end
up deputy Labour leader.
To kick out Brown: Vote Tory
To stop Cameron: Vote Labour
To stop Clegg: N/A

HAMMERSMITH
Labour majority: 3,673
Brand new constituency encompasses Westfield and BBC developments in
Shepherd’s Bush with big companies in Hammersmith. Cheek-by-jowl poverty
and affluence as big housing estates mingle with Victorian housing favoured
by middle classes keen on swift transport links to central
London.
Target seat number 78 for the Tories, it could be one to watch for Tories
becoming the biggest party in Parliament. Self-styled “street” campaigner
Shaun Bailey is hoping to depose former MP Andy Slaughter. Bitterly fought
contest has focused on housing. Tory council, which has low council tax but
controversial plans for council homes, looms over the race. Libs distant
third but could upset this knife-edge battle.
To kick out Brown: Vote Tory
To stop Cameron: Vote Labour
To stop Clegg: N/A

HAMPSTEAD AND KILBURN
Labour majority: 474
The spiritual home of Labour’s chattering classes, long before Islington
was a glint in Blair’s eye. But boundary changes mean Highgate and Primrose
Hill have been stripped out and replaced by grittier Brondesbury, Queen’s
Park and Kilburn.
Former minister Glenda Jackson is in real danger from the Lib-Dems and
Tories, who jointly run Camden council in a former Labour heartland.
Lib-Dem Ed Fordham could benefit from Clegg surge if enough Tories realise
he’s in second place. Yet Jackson has always benefited from three-way
nature of seat splitting her opponents. Anti-airport campaigner Tamsin
Omond could turn it into a four-way split.
To kick out Brown: Vote Lib-Dem
To stop Cameron: Vote Labour
To stop Clegg: Vote Tory or Labour

ISLINGTON SOUTH AND FINSBURY
Labour majority: 484
Stretching from Farringdon’s lofts to Islington’s new Labour heartland in
Barnsbury, it has large areas of council housing and unemployment near
Angel.
Barrister Emily Thornberry is up against it defending what was a safe seat
under Cabinet minister Chris Smith. Local Lib-Dem council has chipped away
at Labour over the years and Tories now marginalised. Lib-Dem candidate
Bridget Fox often on Twitter announcing her latest bout of campaigning.
Looks like a repeat of neighbouring Hornsey and Wood Green, which fell to
Lib-Dems in 2005.
To kick out Brown: Vote Lib-Dem
To stop Cameron: Vote Labour
To stop Clegg: Vote Tory or Labour

POPLAR AND LIMEHOUSE
Labour majority: 3,823
Formerly twinned with Canning Town, it has now been shrunk so that
Shadwell, Canary Wharf and the Isle of Dogs form its main areas.
Concentrations of affluent riverside homes yards from traditional council
housing. Clement Attlee cut his teeth in Limehouse.
The big question is whether Respect’s George Galloway can have as dramatic
an impact as he did in neighbouring Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005. With a
high Bangladeshi population, he could cause minister Jim Fitzpatrick big
problems by splitting Labour’s vote and allowing Tory Tim Archer a chance
to run through the middle. The Lib-Dems are not in contention. Gordon Brown
and David Cameron have campaigned here.
To kick out Brown: Vote Tory or Respect
To stop Cameron: Vote Labour
To stop Clegg:N/A

RICHMOND PARK AND NORTH KINGSTON
Lib-Dem majority: 3,613
Although famed for wealthy Richmond Hill and its green, professional
families living in Barnes and suburban north Kingston have over the years
turned this into a Lib-Dem heartland.
One of the classic contests of the night, with its high-profile largely
stemming from Tory environmentalist Zac Goldsmith’s celebrity status. Armed
with local roots, green zeal and an expensive Lib-Dem council, Goldsmith
seemed to be cruising to victory. But revelations about the millionaire
Tory’s non-dom tax status — plus the Clegg surge— could help incumbent
Susan Kramer hold on to the struggling middle class families who determine
the outcome. Kramer’s defence of Kingston Hospital’s maternity unit could
also swing things her way.
To kick out Brown: Vote Tory
To stop Cameron:Vote Lib-Dem
To stop Clegg: Vote Tory

WESTMINSTER NORTH
Labour majority: 2,120
A hugely varied seat, from the Bengali families in Harrow Road to the more
affluent St John’s Wood. Boundary changes have meant that Tory wards were
added.
One of those key seats Cameron needs to form a majority government in the
Commons tomorrow. But the battle between Tory barrister Joanne Cash and
Labour incumbent Karen Buck seems to be zig-zagging all the way to the
finishing line. Pregnant Cash was damaged by her decision to quit — and
then reinstall herself — as candidate after a feud with her local Tory
chairwoman. But she has wisely spent time cultivating more deprived parts
of the seat and the Conservatives believe she will benefit from being a
clear symbol of Cameron’s modern Tory party.
To kick out Brown: Vote Tory
To stop Cameron: Vote Labour
To stop Clegg: Vote Tory or Labour

TOOTING
Labour majority: 5,169
Although it takes in leafy Wandsworth Common, poorer Earlsfield and Tooting
areas have meant it has stayed Labour since the Seventies. Made up of
Thirties semis and big council estates with high ethnic minority
populations.
This could provide London’s “Portillo moment”, as victory would mean the
Tories are close to an overall majority and transport minister Sadiq Khan
would lose his seat in the process. Mark Clarke, a former chairman of
Conservative Future could benefit from the increasing colonisation of the
area by middle class professionals priced out of central London.
Traditionally, the Lib-Dems are nowhere near but again the Clegg effect
could upset calculations, particularly among younger affluent voters.
To kick out Brown: Vote Tory
To stop Cameron: Vote Labour
To stop Clegg: Vote Tory or Labour

collective / co-op project of flats, shared space, cafe, theatre in Ijburg.

…and some ideas not so easily transferred to UK: next house arrives at floating neighbourhood from factory 120km away. Small tug on right.

We spent a day with  Barrie Needham in Nijmegen, a lot of time with Arie van Wijngarten and a bit with Daniella Wullers. (How well this Inura network works; what good comrades they are…)

These Ijburg dwellings are a mixture of social housing (housing associations), developer-built private apartments or houses, a lot of individually-developed houses and then a number of other forms.

The individually-developed plots -some in terrace form, others free-standing-are subject to ground leases from the city.  Fifty year leases with right of renewal (at a reviewed ground rent) on termination.  There are lots of pictures here.  There were controls on maxium building envelope and fire/building regulations but not on design, so the diversity is amazing.  QUESTION: how easy is it to get credit? Arie said most people had trouble getting bank etc credit before completion, and were thus reliant on family or other bridging finance, but after completion he thought it not a problem.  In some streets you have to make car space(s) within the plot or building (and you can’t get a resident street parking permit); in other streets you can get one street parking permit per dwelling. Additional cars must pay daily rate for street parking.  NB the one road bridge to the island has only one lane each way for cars and has (as anticipated) long queues at rushour.  This all helps to get people onto the tram, or bikes.

We saw also a couple of projects which were co-ops or communal housing schemes, with individual flats plus other space.  One of these is a group which operates a cafe and small theatre.

rttcflyer03_10-3 and the podcast is here

Comments of an old socialist on Tory plans for planning

Thanks for asking me to comment.  I’m an old socialist, thoroughly enraged by New Labour’s wholesale adoption of the neo-liberal legacy from the Thatcher period.  They caved in to developer and volume housebuilder lobbies, ‘reformed’ local government in ways that make it less democratic, insisted on the tube PPP and other privatisations, refused to create proper development corporations to do the Thames Gateway and in all sorts of ways sustained the asset value bubble which has now brought us all to grief, reinforced the worst social class inequality in western Europe and now threatens us with huge cuts in the social wage to pay for last year’s compensations to banking shareholders. And they haven’t even taken global warming seriously. If that’s what a Labour Party can do, perhaps the Tories will be better.

Some of the highlights are indeed appealing and with my tinted spectacles I could see them as welcome reforms:

1. More local democracy would be grand.  At last someone grasps the nettle. Imagine building up the Camden or Hackney Borough plan from the fragments worked out in  localities!

Getting rid of unelected regional bodies  sounds good too.

but this version just looks like a NIMBY charter, with no mechanisms to enable the weak and deprived to negotiate with the rich and strong, either between parishes or at a sub-regional/regional scale, where the replacement is NOTHING.

2. Third party rights of appeal where a permission is a departure from the development plan is a great idea.  It would really give the development plan some weight if elected members and officers could no longer drown those hard-won policies in ‘other material considerations’ like regeneration benefits, conservation benefits, viability, and so on.

This reform would probably lapse if they get into power as I recall happened to a similar manifesto proposal from Labour in 1997. Pity

3. Flexibility between clusters of use classes where specified, or not excluded, in the development plan.  That sounds interesting for places with lots of vacancy, and it’s a welcome departure from ‘one size fits all’.  This one has to be read along with the presumption in favour of ’sustainable developments’.  It moves the UK towards a continental system of entitlement to development rights except where those rights are explicitly circumscribed in the plan.  Could this be a serious attack on our utterly dysfunctional, car-dependent, settlement pattern?

Does this mean that only zero-carbon buildings which generate mainly pedestrian, cycle and equine trips will be permitted development?  No, because ’sustainability’ means whatever each LPA says it means in its local plan.  And once that local plan is approved then that definition of sustainability is sanctified for that area.  A local authority could define it in terms of financial viability, or as vegetable gardens large enough to support a family….

4. Finally these incentives. It’s good to see that LPAs will be incentivised to encourage development and thus prevent the NIMBY triumph.

It’s clear from experience in parts of Spain that, if you make the financial incentives big enough, you can have local authorities approving development on a vast scale, quite unrelated to demand or need or ’sustainability’. But I don’t believe that a single rate of incentive which the Tories propose will work equally well in Berkhamsted and Corby, Redbridge and Wandsworth.  The other proposed use of incentives is for developers to buy off the individuals or localities which object to projects: very regressive and nasty.

So I don’t buy it after all.  And I’m not sure the Tories’ regular customers will buy it either. It has plenty in it for the defence of residential privilege, but not nearly enough to satisfy the BPF, the HBF and the financial sector behind them.  There are, as always, tensions within the bourgeoisie.  So far as “material planning considerations” go, I still have no-one to vote for.

Interestingly the meeting couldn’t find anything positive to say.

There is a 4-page summary at http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/507390/pdf/1437001.pdf and the full report is at http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/507390/pdf/1436960.pdf

Based on a stepwise regression analysis of over 900 sites approved for housing in England in 2005-6, the report, in the words of the press release: “…highlights an average determination period for the sites analysed of 43 weeks. The study finds that differences in development control times take place within each local authority and that variability appears to be a feature of the development control system overall.

The research also identifies that:

* Development control time increases with the size of development (measured by number of homes) but overall takes less time per dwelling built. Time is not affected by other scheme features.
* Trophy or prestige projects, as well as social housing schemes, tend to go through development control faster than others.
* The development control process takes longer in more affluent localities and where there are hung councils.

The report concludes that uncertainty in time taken to process applications has significant implications for housing supply. It argues that long determination periods “will inevitably discourage investment in bringing forward new sites in the period following a recession, as developers will want to be certain that a strong recovery is under way before they make any such lengthy commitment.”

Less than a third of the variance is ‘explained’ by the regression (which is wrongly described as a hedonic analysis, tho’ that doesn’t matter much) and the variation in duration really is colossal, with the standard deviation about the same as the mean duration (report p 37), both for the net time when the LPA was handling the case and for the gross time - including periods when the applicant was working on revisions etc. There is a very great deal of variation to explain. As with any such analysis, it is fascinating and there are lots of good insights.  But it’s fundamentally unsatisfactory.

The great mystery about the work is why they didn’t explore (at least)  three rather obvious factors which could explain the varying decision times:

• whether the application was in conformity with plans/policies;
• whether pre-application discussions had taken place—discussions which are supposed to get conflicts and snags sorted out prior to submission and thus speed the grant of permission—and
• whether schemes approved most rapidly were in any sense ‘worse’ outcomes than others (which planners often argue in defence of needing more time).

Mike responded to our comments on this by saying that the statistical approach meant that only quantifiable explanatory variables could be included and I do see that the third factor (quality of outcome) could be hard to measure.  However that defence does not cover the other two factors: every decision has an Officer’s Report and (in my experience) this always deals with conformity and often mentions pre-application discussions.  Pre-application discussions are surely also the subject of record within the LPA, if only because of the bizarre practice of charging applicants for them.  Without exploration of these factors I think that the report’s conclusion that there is a huge amount of arbitrary / random / inexplicable variation in time taken is itself an arbitrary and tendentious conclusion.  I think I have argued this correctly but I’ll ask MB to comment in case I’m wrong.

If I’m right in my scepticism then an alternative truth could underly the observations: developers who select sites indicated in development plans, prepare schemes which conform with policy and are well-designed, then check this out through pre-application discussions, can be fairly confident of a quick and positive decision. They can also be fairly certain that doing the opposite (on any or all of the 3 variables) will increase the time taken to get permission, or even bring refusal. Costs of waiting will be higher, but it will have been a calculated decision without much uncertainty. It may be worth doing in cases where the payoff is very high.

Two other issues cause me to reflect.

The argument is made that the decision-time, and especially the allegedly great uncertainty about decision time, means that it is entirely rational for housebuilders to hold substantial landbanks of sites with permission so that they can produce a steady flow of output without being stalled by running out of approved sites. The fact that developers held a reported 2.7 years supply of permissions is thus evidence of rational response to the planning system’s unpredictability, not evidence of speculation. My question is whether the distinction matters. We certainly have a system/practices in the UK whereby land used for housing development is very expensive, especially in southern regions, and the sucessful management / timing of land acquisition / assembly / permisions in relation to sales is a major determinant of profitability for developers - far more important than the quality of their output, floorspace standards or building costs per square metre.  Clearly the NIMBY / conservationist / CPRE containment pressures for the last ?6  decades have been and remain a major force in this. And the planning system is a major vector / instrument in implementing these interests.  But even if all planning decisions could be well-made within 13 weeks, don’t tell me that our housebuilding industry would transform itself into a high volume production system.

The last point to record is that I asked Mike a question about whether the industry he analysed so brilliantly in his 1983 book Housing Policy and Economic Power (a sector well-adapted to remaining profitable in volatile conditions, through negligible direct / secure employment, minimal fixed capital and flexible stop-start technology) had changed into the industry he is now implicitly describing - one which needs conditions for stable production, to maintain its staffing and so on.  He replied that he thought it had not changed.  He said it’s an “elastic” industry.  But like a rubber band, it can be stretched too far.

Then on Monday evening the LSE had a seminar by Ian Gordon - very stimulating and data-rich as usual - in which he was trying to work out why London has such high levels of worklessness. Part of the concentration of worklessness is, of course, an illusion because ‘London’ (i.e. Greater London) is just part of the labour market area and the part where the disproportionate amount of worklessness is concentrated. After separating out the part which is identifiable as demand-deficient you are left with the structural/frictional part and the distribution of this is explained purely by characteristics of residents -and/or how employers treat those characteristics.

He analysed the summer 2009 LFS and identified the factors whch seem to make people MORE likely to be ‘voluntarily’ out of the labour force (+) or LESS (-). My notes are…

tenure:  mortgaged - / social rent+  (outright owners and private renters are average)

white -; muslim+ esp female  (religion not ethnicity is what counts, he said)

language difficulties +

married/cohabiting: — men;  women +

no qualif +;  late completion of education -

Poor (limiting) health +

There wasn’t time for proper discussion, but class was accepted as a strong explanatory thread in all this.  Oddly it hadn’t ocurred to Ian to look at housing benefit as an explanatory factor, while many of us in the audience assumed it would turn out to be a major factor. Ill health of a household member also likely.  (Maybe the LFS doesn’t tell.)  He wonders whether London attracts a lot of people not very interested in working, or able to do it only intermittently. Note also that London has proportionately very few part-time jobs, especially in the centre.  News to me.  The slides are at http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/LSELondon/events/lenttermseminars/Lent%20Term%20seminars%202010.htm

[In pasing Ian did an elegant dismissal of all those who allege / assume that localities with high unemployment are somehow localities with few local jobs.  I wish we had had him when Argent and CBRE and Camden were arguing that King's Cross must have all those thousands of jobs to help all those deprived people into employment.  Students continue to say it to this day, too, however much I try and explain that it's rubbish.]

Then on Thursday I spend the morning with Duncan Bowie whose Highbury Group is producing a manifesto on housing for the UK election. Apart from Duncan, only I and James Stevens from the HBF turned up to finalise the draft, the other having emailed comments.  It was actually rather enjoyable. James is a kind of independent-minded market-oriented economist that I can sometimes really agree with on some issues and, for example, we saw almost eye-to-eye on the poisonous effects of green belts, conservation areas etc on supply and inequality. The manifesto will not be a revolutionary document but it is quite good strong stuff and I hope that it will help push a bit against the dreadful orhothodoxy that we MUST have state expenditure cuts.

Then resistance to state expendture cuts was a bonus, last-minute, element in an event on Friday: LSE again and they had a seminar on the future of social housing in London.  The material will all be on the web site (as at the top of this post) and Sonia and I went to it.  A mixture of stuff but mosty very supportive of social housing, and the need for more of it. Lots of interesting material from Christine Whitehead but she’s so tethered inside conventional economics. She used ’subsidy’ in the sense that anyone paying less than the current maket rent is getting a subsidy. I grumbled, saying that most soclial housing was paid for long ago, much now even producing surpluses to ’subsidise’ other government. She ticked me off roundly: “I meant subsidy in the economic sense.”

Anne Power gave a talk which was rather ambiguous about the benefits and inuries of ‘regeneration’ and got taken to task rather strongly by Richard Lee and Sharon Hayward from the London Tenants’ Federation - getting her to agree explicitly that the effect of inserting other tenures into council estates was seriously negative. I think she was a bit surprised to find tenants sitting in the front row.  Indeed it felt as though it wasn’t something that normally happened at LSE - so I felt very pleased at having made sure they got the invitation. At the end of the meeting it was intriguing to see Anne Power on her knees in discusion with the two of them.

Right at the end Nicky Gavron gave qute a “rousing” talk (and she’s resuming the chair of the Assembly planning and housing committee soon). She emboldened me to ask why none of the speakers all day had had the nerve to stick up for state expenditure.  All had implicitly or explicitly subscribed to the orthodoxy that massive cuts are essential. She was quite keen on us expressing resistance, and there was some good clapping. Mike Harloe, closing the event, said he thought it would take a combination of strong arguments about the damage done to the economy + a lot of trouble on the streets to get governments to take social housing seriously again. I’ll add to this.

The research centre is awkwardly named UKCMRI (UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation) and is a joint project of UCL, The Wellcome Foundation, the Medical Research Coucil (MRC) and Cancer Research UK:  all the great and the good. It’s designed to concentrate on a single site the MRC activity currently at Mill Hill in the north western suburbs and other research already in Central London.  There is a very powerful case—it seems to me—for it to be in or near Bloomsbury and close to the Eurostar and national railway hub.  (I had previously thought that it was just the kind of thing whch should remain in the suburbs as part of efforts to make London more polycentric, but I was probably wrong.) More details at http://www.ukcmri.ac.uk/.  The promoters already bought the site (from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport DCMS) for an undisclosed sum and have sunk some more money into design work, despite the fact that Camden Council’s local plans and brief for the site had the plot designated for a mx of uses including ‘community’ spaces and housing, including social rented housing.

Housing needs in the area (as elsewhere) are acute: there is serious overcrowding, very severe ill-health associated with poverty and bad housing.  Feeling in the area is very strong because these housing and social needs are not being met.  The settlement reached in 2006 for the development of the adjoining railway lands (the King’s Cross Central development by Argent) was disappointing in the amount of social rented housing it would yield and, to cap it all, the other substantial nearby site—the National Temperance Hospital in Hampsead Road—which had been acquired by the MRC when it first planned to move from Mill Hill now looks as though it will be sold to the highest bidder (and thus probably not used for social rented housing).

Camden’s head of development control chaired the meeting (very well) but Camden’s position came over in a way which—reading between the lines—made it very clear that they were moving along in unison with the promoters of the scheme and were preparing the ground for giving permission. The case offcer explained that the local plans were only one component of ‘the Development Plan’ and that the decision by Camden’s Development Control Committee would—as the law requires—be made in the light of ‘all material considerations’ including London and national Policy….. and so on.  As a former councillor said at the meeting, if Camden did not give permission the Mayor of London probably would.  And of he did not, then the Secretary of State surely would.  It is David v Goliath with a very weak David.  As usual.

Just 100 metres away, on the other side of St Pancras staton, Camden had given permission in 2006 to Argent for a massive mixed-use development and I asked what efforts had been made by Camden or by the applicants to acommodate the UKCMRI within the very flexible scheme of Argent.  In that way the research centre could have met all its location requirements while Camden could have retained the Brill Place site for meeting urgent social needs.  There was no response from Camden at all.  But the UCMRI speaker (John Cooper I think) responded that Argent had been approached some time ago (before he had joined the project) and had said that their scheme could not really acommodate more than one public institution and they had already ageed to house the Univesity of the Arts. [I was later told that UKCMRI's insistence on a freehold had also been a problem in relation to the KXC site.]  To my comment that the crisis had deepened in the last few years so that Argent was now rather short of occupiers and might be glad of them, he responded that he thought Argent remained optimistic about their scheme attracting commercial occupiers and that, anyway, UKCMRI now had a lot of sunk costs in the Brill Place site implying that they could not now re-locate.

Normally it is assumed that anyone who buys a site designated in the development plan for a particular use, but with the intention of using it for something quite different, runs a strong risk of being refused.  The facts that an applicant has paid for the land and sunk a lot of money in making plans for it are emphatically not material planning considerations. But it is clear in this case that, if you are powerful enough, and have a strong moral/ethical case for your alternative use, your risk is negligible.  So there.

What is so shocking to me about this is that it further shows how wrong Camden were to give such a huge, long-term, permission to Argent.  As we said at the time, they were giving away their responsibility to control the evolution of the railway lands development in the light of changing circumstances, and Argent’s performance and changing policy priorities.  Already we see the price being paid for that.

This research centre seems like a great project to me:  just the sort of global/national and socially-useful facility which ought to be in King’s Cross. But we need a form of local democracy which ensures that the exceedingly deprived and vulnerable surrounding locality has its needs met as well.

There are lots of other issues here, and I’ll return to them when I get time:

1. The de-politicised role of planning commitees;

2. To reduce the bulkof the building, UKCMRI plan to have ‘a third of it’ below ground level.  That’s a lot of mud to shift and a lot of tonne-km of trucking.  Are they going to use the canal for it?

3. There is also the thorny issue of east-west access through the site so that there is a good pedestrian/cycle route parallel to the Euston Road and joining all the stations. We received some assurances from UKCMRI yesterday that this is being considered, but it was well short of an undertaking.  Camden said nothing.

4.  The local residents are far from united in style of action: while the discontent seems universal, it is expressed in a wide spectrum of ways: panicky and shrill at times, bitter at others, calmly argued sometimes.  There does not seem to be much effective leadership from local politicians.

That’s all for the moment.